StormFest 2014 Hits Raleigh This Week

Posted on March 4, 2014 by Melissa Mainhart

Rebecca Cumbie demonstrates the properties of air pressure to visitors at StormFest 2012.Since its inception in 2010, StormFest has gathered science and weather enthusiasts to learn about and engage in weather, specifically severe storms. Each year the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, located in downtown Raleigh, opens its doors for the public to interact with professional meteorologists, emergency management officials, and SkyWarn trainers, to name a few. This year StormFest will be held on Thursday, March 6th from 5:00 to 9:00 pm in the Nature Research Center at the Museum.

As a part of North Carolina Severe Weather Awareness Week, the night will be focused on severe weather and how you and your family can be prepared for it. This year StormFest will feature several television news stations, the Raleigh National Weather Service, and the State Climate Office. Together they will present more weather knowledge than you will know what to do with!

The State Climate Office enjoys participating in StormFest each year and we always look forward to talking with the public about weather and climate. In addition to showing off our weather and data services with dynamic displays, we also will have several interesting demonstrations, including a tornado machine and an explosive can crushing experiment, that show some of the forces and processes we see in our atmosphere. Our table will be full of information about climatology, weather, and even ways you can get involved in the citizen science community!The SCO booth prepared for StormFest 2013.

Last year we had a contest to see who could correctly guess the number of M&Ms in our CoCoRaHS rain gauge. The winner received his very own CoCoRaHS rain gauge! What did the SCO staff fill the gauge with this year? You will have to come visit our table to find out! Look for our tweets (@NCSCO, follow us!) prior to and during StormFest for updates on all the fun!